Flours and Diamonds

"With both hands on the wheel of a getaway car... From the day we met we were goin' too fast, we were born to run, we were built to last.. All I know is sometimes you love it, sometimes you hate it. But what good's love if it ain't a little complicated? It don't always go just like you hoped it would, but sometimes complicated's pretty damn good..." In the last 2 months, when someone asks me how things are going with the house, my response is generally something sarcastic like: "Frank's still alive - that's about all I got!" What I mean is, I haven't strangled or suffocated him in his sleep. What I really  mean is, we're continuing to work as a team while we face the unbelievably difficult and complicated task of preparing a house for our life, and trying to make it our home . What I really, really  mean is, despite the fact that we yell at each other and get frustrated and he acts like a 5 year old and gives me the silent...

"It just doesn't seem like a winning endeavor for you to buy something in this area." "You need to broaden your scope." "Really, you need to look elsewhere. I mean, people commute all the time." "Have you thought about looking in the Central Valley? My friend just bought a house in Manteca for under $300K." "Have you considered Hollister or Los Banos? The commute can't be that bad...?" Have you considered that you probably need to SHUT. THE. F*CK. UP?! I can't tell you HOW. MANY. TIMES. people told us how ridiculous it was that we were damn near killing ourselves trying to buy SOMETHING in San Jose. In the beginning, it didn't matter that we were looking at Townhomes. Then we learned there were a ton of struggles with HOA's not accepting the type of loan for which we were approved. So we asked our AMAZING Real Estate Agent, Mary, to include houses, even if they were small, even if they only had one toil...

We Bought A Zoo... Well, not really. In reality, we bought a house. But, there is enough land for me to have chickens, and a goat, and a dog, and maybe a turkey. So we may as well have bought a Zoo. Albeit a petting zoo, but a zoo, nonetheless. Yup. I said it. We. Bought. A. House. Except that we haven't. YET. I guess I should say We. Are. Buying. A. House. Did you know, that in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, home prices are nearly TRIPLE what they are in similar climates across the nation? Did you know that the average number of days a house in the San Francisco Bay Area stays on the market is LESS THAN 10? Did you know that this is a SELLERS market? Because crazy ass people like me and Frank are more than willing  to "play the game" and offer obscene amounts of money OVER the list price because, we, like most other married couples in their 30's, are crazy, and want to be property owners. Did you know that Flood Insurance can ONLY be purchase...

Up to this point, I  have failed miserably at keeping up with this blog. I could throw out some shade and recount all the reasons why I haven't written, but in all reality, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm here, posting now. About the new normal... Recently, I was asked to briefly describe the first 6 years of my life. I simply said happy. My mom didn't work, we spent most of our time with my mom's parents. My dad worked all the time, but was always  around for important things. We vacationed, had family dinners with my aunt and uncle, BBQ's in my grandpa's garden-style backyard. By all accounts, my childhood was the epitome of "normal." Merriam-Webster dictionary defines NORMAL as: usual or ordinary : not strange. Yes, life was usual and ordinary. At least for me. At least based on made-for-TV-movies... Then, it occurred to me, that might have been "normal" for our family, but it wasn't really "normal" by...

I hate the color pink. There. I said it. But really, it's not a secret. Even looking around my office, there is nothing pink. Not even a pen. I may own 1 or 2 articles of clothing that are pink, and chances are, I didn't pick them out myself. Another admission? When I was pregnant, I told my sister she wouldn't get to go anywhere near my child if I was having a girl and she decided to throw me a baby shower with ANYTHING pink. The fact of the matter is that the color itself, is simply, unpleasing to my eye. As a graphic designer, I break down colors into CMYK and RGB. What does that mean? CMYK is the 4-color process that is used to display colors for print. RGB is the the 3-color process that is used to display colors on electronics, ie: computer monitor, television, smartphone, etc. These colors are represented by a numerical value. I could go into a lot more detail, but, I understand that all this is relatively uninteresting for most of you. Back to the topic at h...

Day 17 /Day 32... If variety is the spice of life, then it's no wonder I am bored as shit. I started this topic over 2 weeks ago. And I'll be honest, I was seriously bored, and just feeling overwhelmed with things, and life in general. I was sick, well, I'm still sick. Quite frankly, I have bronchitis. I also have Asthma. I also was fearful I was going to get pneumonia. I honestly had this blog in the back of my mind, but I just couldn't get my shit together to write anything more than the first line. But I'd be lying if I said, last night, in a cough medicine with codeine fog, I didn't lay in bed and write out several topic which I could cover on this blog. And honestly, the first thing I thought of made me laugh so hard I had to get out of bed because I couldn't stop coughing. Various topics include: Why I Hate The Color Pink I Ate A Piece Of Pizza I Should Be A Professional Crab Picker A Snowboard To The Chest I Think I Discovered A New Disorde...

So, I realized something. It is relatively unrealistic for me to post on the weekends. I have several reasons, most notably, the computer I use at home is a little old lady, and she doesn't really like to be used anymore. Additionally, I don't have a lot of time on the weekends. So Monday's will just be a wrap up. UNLESS I do something spectacular and can simply post a lovely picture from my phone. However, there was really nothing particularly spectacular about this weekend. And now, on to Stupid Excitement! When you continually tell yourself you "can't" have something, or that you're "choosing not to eat it", it gets a little old. There are a lot of things I miss while participating in the Whole30(62), the most glaring, however, are: butter, ranch dressing, peanut butter and mayonnaise. Welp, it looks like I got stupid excited when I made my very own mayonnaise, and then took some of that and made my very own ranch dressing! All of which ...